Stephen Dixon - His Wife Leaves Him

Whenever he brought her flowers. So why didn’t he bring them to her more? He was so cheap at times. …Their wedding in her apartment. Forty, maybe forty-five people there. The rabbi said they had to start on time — they were waiting for some guests to arrive — because he had a funeral upstate to officiate at and it took an hour to drive there, “and to a funeral you don’t want to be late.” Gwen’s piano teacher played Bach on Gwen’s piano before the ceremony began. His brother was his best man. The rabbi said “No glass to smash? What kind of Jewish wedding is this? Okay, you’re man and wife.” The ring bearer, the son of the pianist, said just before Gwen and he kissed, “Why is Marty crying?” and started giggling. His mother said “Martin, I want to talk to you in private,” and took him off to the side. She handed him an envelope. “What is this, my bar mitzvah?” he said. “Thanks, but I’m not taking anything from you,” and she said “To help defray the cost of the honeymoon.” “We’ve defrayed it already. It’s just Connecticut, an hour and half away and for three days,” and he gave her back the envelope. “Truly, Mom, it’s enough for us that you’re here.” “I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am for you both. And such gorgeous food and your bride is beautiful. But crying at your own wedding?” and he said “You know it wasn’t because I was sad.” “Of course it wasn’t. It shows how sensitive you are and how much she means to you. I’m only saying I never saw or heard of any groom doing it before, and I’ve been to plenty of weddings. I can just imagine how you’ll react when your first baby comes out and you’re in the room,” and he said “Gwen say something to you?” and she said “No, what? If you say you think she’s pregnant, that’s too much excitement for me in one day, so don’t tell me till it’s officially confirmed.” They’d made half the food the past two days and got the rest from Zabar’s. The wedding cake — a huge untiered Black Forest cake — was from Grossinger’s, the same bakery that made his bar mitzvah cake, shaped like a Holy Ark, so maybe that’s why he said what he did to his mother when she handed him the envelope. Gwen chose the beverages — champagne and cognac Winston Churchill favored and wine from the French region where she worked for a week harvesting grapes. Temperature was below zero by the time the wedding ended, so he drove his mother and several other people home on the West Side. When he got back to the apartment, there was an elderly couple who needed to be driven home across town. “We had no luck calling a private car service,” Gwen said. “And you know cabs never cruise the Drive, and it’s too cold and steep a walk to go to Broadway for one.” They cleaned up the apartment for about an hour and then went to bed. Gwen said “I’m too tired to make love,” when he started to. “But if you feel you have to fulfill some wedding night rite, and think you can, go ahead, but don’t expect a lot from me.” He tried and then said after a few minutes “We’ll wait till morning or after we get to the inn. I’m obviously too much of a flop now.” They were still so tired the next morning and a bit hungover that he called the inn to say they’d be a day late, “but not to worry: we’ll pay for the entire three days.” “Since it’s your honeymoon,” the innkeeper said, “and we’d like to think you’ll return here each year to celebrate your anniversary, we’ll waive the third day,” and he said “No, we want to pay. It’d only be fair. Maybe, in exchange, you could provide our cottage with a bottle of red wine and two wineglasses, but you don’t have to and I’m now embarrassed I asked. In fact, don’t.” Later he said to Gwen “What do you think? Should I call my mother and say I married a virgin? That’s what she said my father did with his mother the day after they got married.” The cottage had a Franklin stove and firewood and a comforter they knew would be too warm to sleep under, so he asked the innkeeper for two ordinary blankets. He thought, even though in the end he told the guy not to, there’d be a bottle of wine or champagne in the room, but there wasn’t. First thing they did after they unpacked was open the early pregnancy kit they brought with them and follow the directions. Then they took a drive, had lunch in town nearby, went to a small private modern art museum, but it was only open Friday through Sunday, bought a pair of heavy woolen socks for him because his feet were cold, came back and checked the results of the test. “Oh my goodness,” he said, hugging her, “you’re pregnant. Look at it: we’re gonna have a doughnut.”

She liked thin slices of prosciutto wrapped around a thin slice of honeydew melon. He didn’t like the combination. “Melon and ham, and all that fat? Doesn’t do it for me.” If they had prosciutto but no honeydew melon, she’d say “I can use the cantaloupe we have. It’s not nearly as good with prosciutto as honeydew, but it’s still quite good if you slice it real thin.” If they had prosciutto but no honeydew or any other melon, she’d sometimes say “Know what I’d love with this?” and he’d say “I do, and if you want I’ll go to the market and pick up one. If they don’t have honeydew, then a cantaloupe, and if they don’t have that either, which I’d be very surprised at, then a ripe melon of some kind.” If they had honeydew at home but no prosciutto and she said she’d love to have some with melon — she never said it if they just had cantaloupe or some other kind of melon — he’d say “I’ll get some at the Italian market in Belvedere Square,” and if they were in Maine, “the gourmet market in Blue hill. If they don’t have it, then I’m willing to go all the way to Rooster Brothers in Ellsworth, who always carry it and sometimes two or three versions of it.” “Since I’m the only one here who’s going to have it,” she said, “you don’t have to go just for me,” and he said “But I want to and I could use the break.” And if the kids were home: “And I’ll take the kids with me, if they want, and get them a treat there too.” “If you do get prosciutto,” she reminded him a couple of times, “make sure you first ask for the Parma kind and sliced paper thin. It’s twice as expensive as the American prosciutto — to cut the cost you can even ask for a little less than a quarter of a pound — but it’s more than worth it.”

He bumped into the daughter of Gwen’s Ph.D. advisor on Broadway. It was near where her family owned a brownstone off Riverside Drive and about ten blocks south from where he and Gwen had their apartment. They got to talking — the usual stuff: “How’s Gwen?” “How’s the family?” “How’s your writing going?” “How’s school?”—and then she said she wanted to tell him something she never told him or Gwen but had her parents. “I once saw you and Gwen not far from here in front of the Cuban restaurant on a Hundred-ninth on this side of Broadway. That’s probably why I’m now recalling it. This took place soon after she brought you to our house for dinner and we first met you, so long before you were married and had kids. I didn’t reveal myself to you and Gwen on the street because, corny as this must sound, you only seemed to have eyes for each other, which I think is also why you didn’t notice me, and I didn’t want to spoil it by saying hello. I was young but I at least knew that. You were standing on the sidewalk, each holding one of those corrugated paper cups of what I guess you’d call Cuban ice. I’d got some of it there myself a few times. You fed Gwen a plastic spoonful of it out of your cup — you must have had different flavors — and she in turn gave you a spoonful from hers. You did this a few times, then kissed. Then you each finished your own ices and you dumped your cup and spoon into a trash can at the corner — I think you even took Gwen’s cup and spoon to dump with yours — and grabbed each other’s hand and walked up Broadway, I assume towards home. I’d never seen a couple so happy, is what I’m saying. I thought, watching you walk, when I fall in love with someone, that’s the way I want it to be.” “You know, we’ve had our bad moments too,” he said, “and once even stopped seeing each other for a while, maybe even around that time,” and she said “Of course; every couple goes through that, and sometimes more than once. But then, it was pure joy between you two, and what a wonderful thing to witness. It really seemed rare.” When he got back to the apartment he told Gwen who he’d met on the street and what she’d told him. She seemed to think about it a few seconds and then said “I don’t remember that day but I’m sure it happened. I do remember the ices at the Cuban restaurant that they used to scoop into paper cups. We should go there and get some one of these days, or their bolitas, I think they call that fruit drink. I love them.”